Climb The Corporate Ladder To C-Suite SUCCESS!

Are you ready to lead with integrity and shatter glass ceilings? In Episode 19 of The C-Suite Chicks Podcast, hosts Ashlie and Whitney welcome their first-ever guest, Dr. Karen Hills Pruden, for a dynamic and empowering discussion about leadership, mentorship, and overcoming barriers in the workplace. Dr. Pruden, a leadership expert with decades of experience, shares her personal journey from middle management to senior leadership and offers practical strategies to help others achieve their professional goals.

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Dr. Pruden begins by reflecting on her early career in middle management and how the absence of female mentors inspired her to carve her own path. Using LinkedIn as a tool to find guidance, she negotiated a mentorship at $350 an hour—a bold investment in herself that paid off. Through that mentorship, she discovered her unique skill: applying analytics to human resources to demonstrate value at the table. This ability not only protected her budget but also positioned her as a vital leader within her organization.

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A key takeaway from the episode is the importance of visibility. Dr. Pruden emphasizes that “silence is not a superpower,” encouraging women to share their achievements and leverage opportunities to showcase their skills. She advises turning extra assignments—often seen as burdensome—into career-defining moments of visibility. By doing so, women can break through the barriers of the “boys’ club” and ensure their contributions are recognized.

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Flexibility is another cornerstone of effective leadership, Dr. Pruden explains. Situational adaptability allows leaders to address challenges uniquely and proactively, a skill she believes is essential across industries. The discussion also touches on the unrealistic narratives of overnight success propagated by social media. Dr. Pruden reminds listeners that true success is built over time through hard work, relationship-building, and understanding one’s unique value proposition.

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Dr. Pruden’s dual expertise as both an intrapreneur and entrepreneur sets her mentorship apart. With over three decades of experience balancing corporate leadership with running her own business, she brings a comprehensive perspective to those seeking guidance. Whether you’re looking to climb the corporate ladder or branch out on your own, her advice is grounded, actionable, and inspiring.

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The episode wraps up with a thought-provoking question: If Dr. Pruden could have dinner with any leader, dead or alive, who would it be? Her choice—Princess Diana—highlights the importance of grace under pressure and leading with authenticity, even in the most challenging circumstances.

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Packed with wisdom and practical tips, Episode 19 of The C-Suite Chicks Podcast is a must-listen for aspiring leaders. Connect with Dr. Karen Hills Pruden on LinkedIn to learn more about her mentorship programs, and don’t forget to share this episode with someone who could benefit from her powerful insights.

Dr.Karen Hills Pruden (00:00):

I thought that I could be a leader with integrity, that I could also be honest with my staff. And so I learned what to do and what not to do while I was in middle management. And I just thought that if I had the opportunity and the authority to make changes, that I could be a different type of leader. And so that is why I wanted to go into leadership and middle management. Living through middle management helped me to see that

Ashlie Marshall (00:35):

The weather down here, I'm down in Texas, Whitney's up in Oklahoma, and the weather is all over the place. We're experiencing three seasons in one day. Oh yeah. How about you, Whitney?

Whitney Ramirez (00:48):

Yeah. This morning it was like, it felt like maybe thirties or forties. Yeah. Now it's 65 and sunny. Yeah, but it's chilly. My kids went to school in shorts and a

Ashlie Marshall (01:01):

Hoodie. All right, don't judge. I've done that. Okay. That's where we're at with life. Oh, I'm excited about today we are going to be having our very first guest on our show. Yay. Applause. Woo. Today we have a very, very fun, lively individual who does a lot of great work across all industries for people who are wanting to be in leadership, who are looking towards it, people who are already in leadership. She offers a lot of very, very excellent strategies, advice, help, support, care, all of those things we would like for you guys to welcome Dr. Karen Hills. Putin, thank you for coming on the show.

Dr.Karen Hills Pruden (01:52):

Thank you for having me. I look forward to the conversation.

Ashlie Marshall (01:55):

We are excited to have it. We are are. First thing we want to know is when maybe that's not a win. Maybe it's what caused you to decide that you wanted to be the person helping others, you wanted to be in that mentorship role. What caused you to walk that path?

Dr.Karen Hills Pruden (02:23):

Certainly. So it was a pain point that I went through in my life. I was in middle management, had been there for about 10 years, decided I wanted to be in senior leadership, did not see any female senior leaders around me. It was the boys club and senior leadership. So I was looking for a mentor. So this was about 15, 16 years ago. LinkedIn was about very new on the scene, about five, six years. We're still trying to figure LinkedIn out between the other social medias. And so I decided, well, since I don't know anybody, but I know there's some things I don't know. Let me just do some research on LinkedIn. And so I went on LinkedIn and looked for a female senior leader who looked a little bit like me. African-American had been in a position for about 10 years except for the position that she was in was senior leadership.

(03:20):

So I said if I was blessed to be a senior leader, I wanted sustainability, so I wanted to talk to someone who had been there for a while. So I sent off a copy of my resume to my top 10, two people that I researched, and they made me sweat it out for about two weeks. And then my number one choice got back to me and said that she will be my mentor. That was the ask that was in the email that I sent along with my resume. And she would do it for $350 an hour.

Ashlie Marshall (03:55):

Okay.

Dr.Karen Hills Pruden (03:56):

So back then, middle manager Karen wasn't rolling like that. So it was like, oh my God, but what do you do when someone has the blueprint and have walked the walk to get you where you want to go? And so I negotiated with her a contract for one year, one hour a month, because that was all I could afford one $350 a month for one hour for her to mentor me. And she said, yes, we signed the contract. She didn't cut me off at an hour, if you're wondering. So we met once a month and she helped cultivate and identify what my unique skill was compared to other people in my industry. She helped me to determine that my love from analytics is something that I could use to my advantage. And after working with her for one year, I was invited to apply for a senior leadership position, and I've been in senior leadership since then. So how I fell into what I'm doing now is that it should not be so difficult to find someone to mentor you, to ask the question, what do I need to study? How have my resume look? It should not be so difficult. And so that is how I fell into mentoring others because I don't want others to have to go through that pain point that I went through that it worked out well, but it could have been an adverse situation had I not been creative and utilized LinkedIn to my advantage.

Ashlie Marshall (05:36):

Out of curiosity, you said that she helped you to identify your very unique skillset. So what was your very unique skillset?

Dr.Karen Hills Pruden (05:48):

So I love numbers and my industry is human resources, which is an indirect revenue generating department.

Ashlie Marshall (05:56):

And

Dr.Karen Hills Pruden (05:56):

I have a unique to be able to formulate and quantify a formula that can be validated so that you can amplify your value at the table. So I can tell you based on a formula that I help you create based on how you do your work, how much we contribute to organizational goals, and we can assign a value to it. And so once I was able to do that, my budget didn't get cut. I wasn't looked at as the non-sales person at the table, and that it really helped me hone into my power. And so now I utilize that to help others who are in indirect revenue generating departments articulate their value at the table. Because if you don't articulate your value, you will be devalued in terms of what your contribution is to the organization.

Ashlie Marshall (06:46):

Yeah. Well that's interesting.

Whitney Ramirez (06:47):

Do you find that your, yeah, that is interesting. Do you find that your time spent in middle management really set a good foundation for you in terms of wanting to move forward?

Dr.Karen Hills Pruden (06:58):

Absolutely, because it was after a succession of three very challenging bosses that I decided I could do it in a different way. And what it is is leadership. I thought that I could be a leader with integrity, that I could also be honest with my staff. And so I learned what to do and what not to do while I was in middle management. And I just thought that if I had the opportunity and the authority to make changes, that I could be a different type of leader. And so that is why I wanted to go into leadership and middle management. Living through middle management helped me to see that

Ashlie Marshall (07:38):

Living through. That's a great phrase. From your experience in working with leaders and working towards leadership yourself, what are some of the most significant qualities you have discovered that truly define a high performing leader for you? What qualities do you see that you're like, yes, that is a great quality and you're going to become a great leader?

Dr.Karen Hills Pruden (08:06):

The ability to be flexible, a situational leader is necessary in every industry. There are different leadership styles, different work styles, but if you hold to your primary style and you're not flexible based on what is before you, then you can't necessarily address the exact situation in front of you. And so it is good for us to be experts. I believe that we need to be experts in a lot of different areas, and our lived experiences allow us to proactively address certain things that we may see coming down the road. But even with that background, you have to be flexible to know that this situation may be slightly different based on the specifics that are in front of me based on maybe the talent that is in front of me based on the processes that's in front of me and based on the resources that's in front of me. And so what I've found is that most people who are flexible situational, sending them for flexible are successful because the only thing that is constant in leadership is change.

Ashlie Marshall (09:13):

Yeah. Yeah. That is for sure. That is for sure. I've heard a lot of people use that word in leadership. We have to be flexible. I've also heard people say, you have to be agile. You have to be ready to make that move the sudden pivot. You have to be prepared for things that you are not ever going to be prepared for.

Dr.Karen Hills Pruden (09:40):

Absolutely.

Ashlie Marshall (09:43):

Have you noticed a unique set of challenges that you feel women as a whole face in leadership roles or aspiring to leadership roles? Have there been very significant things that you have found that make it challenging for us as women to move into those spaces?

Dr.Karen Hills Pruden (10:04):

I don't know how much time you have, but Absolutely. Absolutely. So what I will say is that we talk a lot in leadership as women, because we are relational people, we thrive on having successful relationships. But when it comes to ourself or not wins, we don't talk enough. And sometimes people don't know what it is that we've done prior to where they've met us at that particular time. And so we miss out on opportunities. We miss out on people creating positions for us, hiring our companies because it's not necessarily bragging, but we do not talk about our total professional work portfolio, which is our wins. Great point. And I generally don't make a whole lot of general statements, but the guys, they mostly don't have a problem with that everything they did since kindergarten, no. But we view sometimes it as bragging, and so it cuts us out from people being able to hire our businesses, create opportunities, serve as sponsors and ambassadors for us in rooms that we haven't gotten access for because we are too silent in that case. I have a phrase that silence is not a superpower. And that's what I mean. People do not know what it is that you've done, what you're capable of doing until you tell them

Whitney Ramirez (11:37):

Very true.

Dr.Karen Hills Pruden (11:39):

You have some receipts, make sure you got some receipts to go along with that. And so that is one thing. Another thing is, how do I want to say it? I'm not afraid of work. Everything is not going to come with an additional salary. I have took been head of many committees because I made a suggestion at the table at a staff meeting and they said, Hey, by the way, why don't you lead that? Which is that phrase that we all hate, which is why we don't speak up in a staff meeting. We don't want to lead another meeting. But one more thing on the to-do list. But those things sometimes create opportunities for you. It creates the opportunity for you to work up and down the chain. It creates the opportunity for other people in other departments to see what you have to offer beyond your title. Because a lot of people in the organization know your title, but they don't really know what you're capable of. And so they need to see you at work so that they can see how you fit into the scheme of things. And so everything doesn't come with a price tag. And so those additional assignments can be career escalators. And I don't think we as women use that enough because we look at it as additional work. But I changed how I thought about that, and I look at it as a visibility opportunity to work with people that I normally wouldn't work with at the table.

Whitney Ramirez (13:07):

That's a good point. And it sounds like the advice that you would give someone is to share your wins. And so that kind of leads me into our next question for you, which it sounds like your leadership style is very motivating and building people up. And so one question I have is similar to our industry where there's a million digital marketing agencies. What sets your mentoring apart from other leadership consulting firms?

Dr.Karen Hills Pruden (13:41):

I think my background, I work my way up from the frontline to the c-suite, and I've been able to sustain myself for over 15 years. I have a well-rounded professional work portfolio, meaning that I'm an entrepreneur, I work for someone else, and I'm an entrepreneur and have been for 30 years. I utilize systems and programs and contractors and employees to facilitate my business. And so I have the ideology of someone who works in corporate for someone else as well as the entrepreneurship. Most entrepreneurs used to be entrepreneurs for someone else before they branched out on their own. And so for me, what makes me slightly different is that I embody for going on three decades, 28 years actually to be both lanes and have done it successfully. And I can speak to both lanes and I carry that skillset with me in both roles, the entrepreneur role and the entrepreneur role.

(14:49):

And not a lot of people do that, but my business, I work with two sets of people, people who want to elevate up through corporate America. You want to go up to senior leadership or elevate out. You want to convert your professional equity, your reputation to entrepreneurship and work on your own. So because I operate in both of those lanes, I use the advantage of being one that is active. It's nothing formal about me. I don't say I used to work in corporate. No, I still work in corporate. I don't say I'm a formal entrepreneur. No, I am a current entrepreneur and I have been for three decades. And I use that knowledge with the individuals that I deal with.

Whitney Ramirez (15:28):

That's awesome.

Ashlie Marshall (15:30):

And it is very interesting to hear the way that you explain that because a lot of people are not familiar with the term entrepreneur. We're very familiar with it because we've been working that way for the last seven years. But I'm curious to know, because you just explained how you operate in your mentorship. What does a day in the life look like for you?

Dr.Karen Hills Pruden (16:00):

Oh, wow. So we'll start with the night before. So I only sleep four hours. I only sleep four hours a night. So let's get that in. There's no eight hours sleep for me. I just can't because I have too many hats that I wear, but a day. So I wake up about 5, 5, 5 30, check my email, probably move my laptop out of my lap that I fell asleep with it in my lap, laying in the bed. Sometimes that happens instead of going in my office, working on contracts for my consulting clients. And then I'm in the office with my nine to five. And believe me, I haven't worked nine to five for 20 years, but let's just call it my nine to five. I'm there by nine. And then I am working that leadership role until five. All of my business is being handled by my receptionist and the people who answer from my business.

(17:02):

I have a lot of automation going on while I'm working in my entrepreneurship job. And then as soon as I get off of that job, I am either going to a meeting, meeting with a client, a zoom or whatever. I use all of my time and throughout the day in terms of time management, but I also use systems as well. But yeah, it's a long day of meetings, working for both myself and for another entrepreneur. The good thing is I love everything I do. I am in a good place in life where I'm not working a job that I hate, haven't done that in decades. And so that helps keep my drive. Some people say, how do you only sleep four hours a night? First of all, my doctor doesn't want me to sleep four hours and wants me to sleep a minimum of six. So I got to work on that. There's opportunities to work on that. But I love everything that I do, and I need the time because I only get 24 hours just like everybody else. Then I have to sacrifice something. And for me, I sacrifice sleep.

Whitney Ramirez (18:08):

So where do you fit in self-care and how do you prevent yourself from burning out ?

Dr.Karen Hills Pruden (18:16):

Self-care is an interesting term for me because I love everything I do. So I don't know if I'm not being kind to myself. That's fair. But what I will tell you is when my body decides that it needs more than four hours, if I do not pay attention to the signs, like girls sit down, whatever it is that I'm doing at that time will not get done. Meaning that I will wake up 10 hours later when you sit down for a minute and then you just wake up 10 minutes and you might've had a zoom call or something like that, but your body was like, oh no, we're going to catch up on sleep right now. But I kind of use self-care loosely because I don't feel like that I am excluding myself or anything. I enjoy everything that I'm doing, even when I'm not getting sleep, I do things. I shop. I have a massive shoe collection. I shop, I travel with my husband. My husband is retired military, so he's able to jump on with me when I travel all around doing my global speaking type thing. And to me, all of that's a form of self-care when I can merge work and pleasure at the same time.

Whitney Ramirez (19:33):

That's true. My therapist always says, remove your job, your kids and your partner. What do you do for you? And so I got my answer through the shoes and the travel, but you got to exclude work.

Ashlie Marshall (19:50):

Yeah. Out of curiosity, what is one piece of advice that you would give to the next generation of people, women or men trying to aspire into leadership roles?

Dr.Karen Hills Pruden (20:05):

One piece of information. I would like to say in the world of social media, famous that there's no quick fix to success. And I would caution up and coming female leaders to not subscribe to what you see advertised on social media as overnight success. Even for those leaders that are fairly successful now who say that it's overnight, no, they were working behind the scenes. They may not have liked what they were doing behind the scenes, but they were working behind the scenes. There's no such thing as self-made. We all rely on others for elevation because we live in a community. There's no such thing as self-made. And then there's no such thing as overnight, which means how do you translate that into advice? Well, hard work pays off cultivating relationships, pay off learning, your trade pays off. Identifying what your unique selling proposition your USP is.

(21:14):

Mines is being able to create analytics. It may be something different from someone else. What makes you different from people with similar education? What similar roles? What makes you stand out in the market? And then visibility. Visibility creates opportunity. So you cannot be behind closed doors and think that you're going to have the success that you need even if you work in corporate America. People need to know what problem you solve and need to know that you're great at it, not good at it, that you're great at it and that you're consistent. And so I guess for your up and coming leaders, that's the advice that I would pass along to them. It's no microwave success here. Everything is in the oven, takes a while.

Whitney Ramirez (21:54):

That's great advice and is great advice. And so since this is our first guest interview, Ashley and I decided that we would end each guest interview with a fun question. And so our question is going to be, if you could have dinner with anyone, any leader, dead or alive, dead or alive, who would it be and why?

Dr.Karen Hills Pruden (22:19):

Oh, wow. Any leader dead or alive? You threw me with the dead. So many. I can go.

Ashlie Marshall (22:28):

We've had this conversation a couple of times.

Dr.Karen Hills Pruden (22:32):

So I guess I would, the first person who comes to my head, I'm like hesitating. I don't want to say, I feel like a lot of people would say her, so I'm not going to say her. I'm going to say Princess Diana.

Ashlie Marshall (22:46):

That's a good one. That's an excellent one.

Dr.Karen Hills Pruden (22:52):

You talk about a woman who exemplified grace under

Whitney Ramirez (22:57):

Pressure

Dr.Karen Hills Pruden (22:59):

That the world didn't know what she was dealing with. Probably got a glimpse of it towards the end, but who held her head up high and showed us that even when we got what we probably wanted and found out is not what we wanted, that we can still handle it in a graceful way. I just think it's a lot of lessons to be learned from how we conduct ourselves when things does not work out the way that we planned it. I think it's a testimony to who we are as leaders, as people, as individuals, to when things are going bad, how we hold ourselves accountable, and things that we say and things that we do. So I would say Princess Die and any other woman leader who is operating and living in a high visibility role under pressure like that.

Ashlie Marshall (24:00):

Yeah, that's a great choice. I like that one. That's great. So Dr. Karen, tell us where everyone can find you and how can they learn more about your mentorship and all the things that you're involved in.

Dr.Karen Hills Pruden (24:15):

Absolutely. So I hang out on LinkedIn, so you can find me under Dr. Karen Hills, Pruden, H-I-L-L-S, Pruden, P-R-U-D-E-N. And my website is my name Dr. Karen Hills, Pruden. If you find me on LinkedIn, you'll find out everything that I do because my team puts everything up there. When I say everything, everything up there. I am a entrepreneur, entrepreneur, community leader. I'm an awful girl power, but I'll talk to the guys as well because leadership competencies aren't gender specific. Whenever I hold conferences or retreats, there's always at least two men in a room and it's like, who let them in? And it's like they figured out that it's not gender specific. And so yeah, LinkedIn is where I hang out at. And if you attach yourself to me on LinkedIn, then you'll find out all that I do.

Ashlie Marshall (25:14):

Awesome. Excellent. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for coming and sharing your knowledge and your experience and your expertise. We really enjoyed chatting with you today.

Dr.Karen Hills Pruden (25:23):

Thank you. I'm your first guest. It's so special. That's so special. It's so special. Thank you so much. Thank you. I appreciate it. I love this. I love chatting with female leaders. Love it. Love it.

Ashlie Marshall (25:40):

Well, thank you very much and if you enjoyed listening to Dr. Karen, go find her on LinkedIn and drop a note. Leave us a review. Let us know what you thought of our chit Chat today and share with the friends. See y'all next time. See you next time. Bye. Bye.

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